Quality Rankings?

[tjen]

How would you rank the following CD factories in terms of their CDR qualities today? (These names are mainly from the middle to lower quality group in the article.) It seems that many of the lower quality factories have improved their quality somewhat and I was wondering if their improvements are such that the quality gap between the best and the worst is significantly smaller than before.

Sony
CMC Magnetics
Gigastorage
Multi Media Masters & Machinery SA
Princo
Ritek
Prodisc

[TaiyoYudenRulez]

Hi there,

I'll list the CD-R companies you mentioned in order from good to bad from my experience.

Here goes:
1. Prodisc Technology Inc. (Gold/Gold)
2. Taiyo Yuden Co. Ltd. (Silver/Blue)
3. Sony Corp. (Silver/Blue)
4. Prodisc Technology Inc. (Silver/Silver)
5. Princo Corp. (Silver/Silver)
6. Ritek Corp. (Silver/Blue)
8. Ritek Corp. (Silver/Silver)
9. CMC Magnetics Corp. (Silver/Silver)
10. Multi-Media Masters & Machinery (Silver/Silver, Silver/Blue)
11. Ritek Corp. (Silver/Dark Blue)
12. CMC Magnetics (Silver/Dark Blue)
13. Gigastorage Corp. (Silver/Blue, Silver/Silver)

Please note that I've listed several companies more than once because they manufacture different products. Also, I listed Taiyo Yuden because they have been main producers of Sony CD-R's.

Notes:
- Prodisc Gold/Gold is still available, but is rare.
- Princo seem to make good quality CD-Rs under their name, but when they produce the NoName variety of CD-R, they can be unacceptable quality.
- I have had no trouble with Ritek Silver/Blue or Silver/Silver so far, but I've had lots of trouble with Ritek Silver/Dark Blue, which is not out of production, thankfully!!
- Don't even think of purchasing CMC Dark Blue, or Gigastorage Blue. They are unacceptable quality and shouldn't be recorded at over 4x speed.
- MMM&M make acceptable CD-Rs, but they're Made in India...take a chance if you wish...

Thanks for reading.

TYR.

[tjen]

Any reason why Prodisc ranks so well?

The shop I get my CDR's from are pushing the Smart Buy brand at rather attractive prices and from what I've been able to find out searching on the web, Smart Buy is Prodisc's own brand.

Also, where did you hear that MMMM's made in India? 'cos I've been using those (Emtec brand), but would like to switch brands, since it doesn't seem to be quite so good. I've had a couple of discs with holes on the reflective layer and 1 CD so far where I couldn't extract the data a week or 2 after burning. And recently (didn't use to happen), a lot of them give Power Calibration errors on my Plextor when I try to burn at 12x, so I have to bring it down to 8x.

I also read that Sony is now manufacturing out of Taiwan now, so I'm wondering if it's worth the premium.

One last thing... Would you say that the brands where manufacturers are producing for themselves (e.g. Taiyo Yuden & That's, Prodisc & Smart Buy) tend to have better quality than when the manufacturers produce for other brands?

[TaiyoYudenRulez]

I rate Prodisc so high because I have never found a bad disc in all bulk and retail packs I've ever used. They also seem to burn pretty well at high speeds. Their phthalocyanine dye layer seems pretty thick when compared to other phthalocyanine CD-R manufacturers!

Taiyo Yuden make high quality CD-R's wherever you go. They all look the same (with the frosty centres), and they all burn perfectly! (Expect that from Japanese-made CD-R). It wasn't until recently that Ritek made a worthy product. I use TDK CD-R74 which is made by Ritek and have never had a problem with them. It seems that Ritek smooth out the edges of the discs more when they OEM for other companies!

I found out that MMM&M are made in India when I got a 10-pack of BASF/Emtec CD-R74 from my local store. It reads, on the bottom of the retail box: Made in India. When I did a CDRIdentifier test, it came up with MMM&M, Phthalocyanine (Type 6).

Hope that helps!

[accooper]

OK, how do you rate Verbatim CD-R's?

[TaiyoYudenRulez]

I rate Verbatim's just as high as other High quality discs.

TYR

[accooper]

Thanks!

[tjen]

Here's a new one... I just got a bunch of them...

How does Plasmon fit in the rankings?